Developments!

It’s been a while since my last post here, but the stats still show that visitors are coming. Which I’m very happy about!

I just wanted to say that I have a new site at jamessouttar.com which is now going to be my permanent ‘work’ presence on the web, and it includes a ‘scrapbook’ tumblelog (i.e. a kind of ‘words and pictures’ blog) as well as the complete text of my book Transforming Communication. The book contains pretty much everything I’ve written about visual communication: the essays and articles I’ve written for various publications, (an edited version) of the many posts I made to the GRAPHICS-L list in the nineties and everything that I posted here. What’s more, you can download it for free as an e-book! (The only ‘price’ is that you have to find it on the site, which increases my ‘page impressions’ in Google Analytics and makes me feel like the effort of making the site was worthwhile ;-)

If any of you feel minded to link to the new site, you will be assured of my undying gratitude (since this will materially effect its ranking in Google, unlike the number of visits which simply boosts my vanity - and gives me hope, perhaps unduly, that someone one day might offer me a job ;-)

What’s going to happen here? I’m not sure at the moment. Perhaps I’ll start writing again? But maybe not for the moment.

With best wishes to everyone who reads here (and seasonal greetings!)

James

The Narcissistic Brand

Over the last few months I've become fascinated by the psychology of narcissism. Since this was first identified as a pathological condition by Freud, it has stimulated a great deal of investigation with some very interesting findings. What I find so striking about it, however, is the way that it seems to describe a fundamental condition of our whole society.

Like the ancient Greek myth of Narcissus, who was doomed to fall in love with his own reflection until — unable to consummate this impossible love — he pined away, a narcissist is someone who is heavily invested in an image of himself or herself but, behind the image, may be living a much impoverished reality. So, for instance, a narcissist may give a great deal of attention to other people's problems, because he wants to present an image of a ‘concerned’ person, but may fail to attend to his own needs. Indeed, he may berate himself because he doesn’t live up to the image he has created. This description might sound strange to those who imagine that narcissism is related to vanity, but a moment’s reflection shows that the ardent supporter of causes may be just as vain as the fashionista or dandy.

The standard work on psychological diagnosis, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV-R) describes narcissism as a ‘a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and a lack of empathy’. Again, it may be surprising to suggest that a ‘concerned’ person might be suffering from lack of empathy. But in fact one can see this frequently in the behaviour of celebrities or politicians who seek to highlight others’ plight to win admiration but who, beyond the cameras, are merely exploiting those they purport to help.

The DSM also gives a list of indicators of narcissism, with the display of more than five of these suggesting that a person is suffering from a Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It states that such a person:

• has a grandiose sense of self-importance
• is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
• believes that he or she is ‘special’ and unique
• requires excessive admiration
• has a sense of entitlement
• is interpersonally exploitative
• lacks empathy
• is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her
• shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

[source: wikipedia]

For a moment, let’s consider these characteristics not in relation to a person but to an organization. Can you think of any organizations that project a grandiose sense of self-importance? Are preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love? Would like to get you to believe that they are special and unique? More to the point, can you think of any organizations that don’t manifest at least five of these qualities?

Of course these characteristics don’t all relate to the organization’s image. The exploitation, lack of empathy and arrogance may be hidden away in the impoverished reality of the organization — the unpublicised day-to-day experience of its staff, and perhaps some of its other stakeholders as well. So, for instance, behind the lovable, cosy supermarket brand there may be an unhappy history of nailing down farmers and other suppliers to unrealistic prices. And behind the self-important bank brand there may be a pattern of intimidating, overworking and bullying staff. This is the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde nature of narcissism: the outward need for admiration and approval but the inward reality of exploitation and unconcern.

Interestingly, there is a connection between these two sides that is not always obvious. The narcissist may, for instance, be seen as someone who cares inordinately about his or her appearance: someone who spends hours each day in the gym, undergoes expensive cosmetic surgery, constantly worries about her diet. But none of these behaviours reflect a concern about the body: indeed the body is made to suffer for the image. And it is the same with organizations: there may be great concern, for instance, with ‘corporate social responsibility’ but the narcissistic organization will suffer for its looks, make great sacrifices to be newsworthy, but its motives will always be to cultivate an image. (This is one reason, incidentally, why the world’s great spiritual traditions all censure public displays of charity — Jesus’ ‘ when you give, do not let your right hand know what your left hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret’ can be seen as a protective against worsening one’s narcissism.)

The phenomenon of the brand can be seen as one of the most potent expressions of a widespread corporate narcissism in our societies. Behind the managed image that is a brand a very different reality may be in place: as with the narcissistic individual, the more investment there is in the image, the more ‘impoverished’ this reality is likely to be. Meaning, here, that the ‘body’ of the organization, the wellbeing of its staff and the integrity of its social fabric, is made to suffer the dissonance of an image so far out of kilter with the reality — a dissonance that will ultimately produce irreparable damage to that fabric, just as the body obsessed narcissist ultimately does irreparable damage to their body. But it is the impoverishment of the real self that is even greater in narcissism: the authentic feelings, perceptions and values of the individual are ignored in favour of those that look good and a callousness sufficient to put the cultivation of image above all else.

‘An enduring truth, a wise friend once explained to me, is that important social change nearly always begins in hypocrisy. First, the powerful are persuaded to say the appropriate words, that is, to sign a commitment 
to higher values and decent behavior. Then social activists must spend 
the next ten years pounding on them, trying to make them live up to their promises or persuading governments to enact laws that will compel them to do so.’ So The teisty American journalist William Greider perceptively observed. And it may be that through the hypocrisy of narcissism, its splitting of image from reality, real change becomes possible to both people and organizations. To do so, however, there has to be a point at which the cause celébre transfers from image to reality: where ‘greenwash’ becomes real environmental stewardship. My sense, however, is that corporate narcissism is not so much a route for change to take root in our society as a disastrous pathology that will, as it does in the case of the individual narcissist, result in a crisis of very significant proportions. It is the point at which the image becomes unsustainable — where its facade begins to crumble, where its demands can no longer be met, where it is seen to be hollow and empty inside — that the narcissist comes to the point of breakdown. It’s at this point, too, that its real poverty is revealed: the total lack of authenticity, the neglect of the real self, the ravages on the body.

Design for the New Age (part 2)

My previous post, Design for the New Age, ended with this question:

‘But what would design be like if it did embrace the New Age? Many of the central themes of New Age philosophies and practices have considerable relevance — and resonance — for design. And there may be answers here for how designers can find a positive and productive role for themselves in the emerging era.’

After a few months for reflection, this is my attempt at an answer.

One of the central themes linking many New Age philosophies is the concept of harmony. Harmony is usually conceived on the model of musical harmony: two or more notes sounding together to give a pleasing concord. And the interesting thing about musical harmony is that although it can be described in mathematical terms, as the ratio of pitches, it depends on human aesthetic sensibilities to distinguish between what is, and what is not, harmonious.

By extension, then, the concept of harmony can be applied — if only metaphorically — to other situations in which two or more similar entities appear together. In visual communication, for instance, it can be used to describe a satisfying relationship between shapes, colours, types, images etc. But it can also be applied to the relationship between people. A group can be said to be in harmony if there is a fundamental concordance between them. The nature of this concordance may be explained in different ways (sometimes in quite outlandish terms) but nonetheless what is being described depends on the same perception of harmony that occurs to in music. What’s more, harmony appears to be an objective (or at least consensual) factor. Someone with a poorly trained ear may not be able to accurately discern what is harmonious or not, but a trained musician will. And although different cultures have different musical preferences, the ability to perceive harmony is not cultural but biological.

You might argue that designers have always applied such acuity of perception in their work. For instance, even the Modernists —not otherwise known for their considerations of harmony — talked about the ‘balance of unequal masses’. What was lacking before, however, was an understanding of the harmonious as the basic principle of well-being throughout the whole of existence: a principle to be strived for as a primary consideration in all enterprise. This understanding of harmony, and the harmonious, has’t been a part of Western thinking since the Renaissance.

The concept of harmony has a number of aspects, each of which has a slightly different bearing on the understanding of design. The aspect of congruence, for instance, which musically is experienced in the phenomenon of a beautiful, ‘warm’ note with a strong, clear fundamental reinforced by successive, harmonious overtones, has considerable relevance for how we see the designer’s skill. A composition, which in the terms of visual communication might consist of messages, words, type, decoration, imagery, colour, materials etc., works most effectively when all the elements support a clearly expressed intention.

Intensification takes congruence a stage further and shows us that when a number of elements are related in a harmonious way, they reinforce each other’s strengths (and, correspondingly, diminish each other’s weaknesses). As we all know, a group of people harmonised around a shared intention can achieve much more than a single individual. But although we think we know this, we rarely put it into practice – either in human or design terms. The organisation is, after all, the padigm case of what a group of people can achieve when they are able to diversify their functions and individuals can employ their specialisations in concert with others. However, much of what we call management consists of imposing a single point of view rather than leveraging this ‘whole is more than the sum of its parts’. And in design, how often have you seen an image asked to do a job that images can do better than words, without the painfully anxious need to repeat the message in words as well?

The aspect of resonance holds that, just as a tuning fork can spontaneously begin to resonate when the same note is played near to it, so communication might work by a similar resonation of the 'tuning forks' within the human being. This analogy also goes some way towards explaining the phenomenon, mentioned earlier, of how suitably sensitised people have the same perception of what is harmonic and what is not.

The really interesting things about resonance is the way that it shows us that harmony involves the communication, or transference, of energy. The tuning fork doesn’t just start to ‘sing in tune’ because of some process of sympathy, but because its state is actively energised by the instrument played near to it. This point, I believe, is of the greatest possible significance to our understanding of design — and particularly to our experience of designed communication. What is communicated is energy. Not as a secondary or incidental part of the process of communication, but as the principal activity. Communication doesn’t transfer ‘information’: information is, instead, the outward and visible aspect of the transmission of energy.

It’s this recognition that I believe will signal a truly ‘New Age’ design. By which I don’t mean an approach to design that is all incense, crystals, tinkly music and half-understood eclectic spiritual jargon, but a genuinely new kind of designing that echoes the central themes commonly associated with ‘New Age’ ideas. A design that reflects a new humanism: design as if people mattered, design that respects the integrity and — above all — the possibilities of the individual, design that heals.

And that’s the last, and perhaps most controversial, point about harmony that I’d like to make. New Age thinking sees harmony not just as a reflection of wholeness but also as healing. Disharmony is dis-ease but that which is itself harmonious exerts an influence that predisposes towards harmony and thus to healing. This was well understood to the ancients, whose ‘sacred art’ was considered not merely symbolic and representational but also therapeutic. For the communication designer, however, this is perhaps the biggest challenge because the intent of so many designed communications is not to represent wholeness but instead to present ideas, goods and services as if they could provide the wholeness for which a population, out of harmony with itself, craves. Real change in this area will only be possible when organisations reconceive their own purposes, putting ideas like harmony above the pursuit of profits. In fact, this is already happening. An indication is the way the idea of profit achieved at others’ expense is shifting to a more harmonious notion of abundance under the influence a new genre of New Age ‘motivational’ bestsellers such as The Secret.